Women in Wine: Fair employment trailblazer

It's likely that job seekers turning up at Grapeworx don't realise that Tanya is much more than a friendly face. She is both a prospective employer and an awarded advocate for fair employment. As General Manager of Grapeworx Marlborough, Tanya runs a team of up to 250 staff, working with 119 growers across Marlborough vineyards. As the Deputy Chair and Human Rights Lead at New Zealand Ethical Employers (NZEE), she works at the heart of a membership organisation championing high standards of employment.

And now she’s joining the New Zealand Winegrowers board, bringing her passion for the industry, and its labour obligations, to the table. Tanya has been elected as a grape grower representative but looks forward to contributing her deep understanding of contracting, labour requirements and “responsible business practices” to the board. New Zealand is well known for world class premium wine, and that quality needs to be reflected in unassailable labour and business practices. “As global demand for our wine continues to grow, so too will the need for rigorous compliance. Given the trade-dependent nature of New Zealand wine, we must stay ahead of ever-evolving standards and regulations to maintain our competitive edge”.

Tanya first felt indignation on behalf of someone being treated unfairly when she was at primary school in Rapaura. She stepped in and made her point. When she was 17, she wrote a letter to her boss, laying out unfair practices at work. Now she’s made protecting those in a weaker position her career. With maturity, she’s also learnt to pick her battles a bit better, she says.

With huge levels of energy and a gutsy ability to learn on the job, Tanya has packed a lot into her life. She left school three months into her sixth form, with a job offer to work in radio, off the back of a summer job with Coastal FM, writing news scripts and ads. A stint at Sounds Radio, rolling out the Breakfast show, was followed with a shift to New Plymouth, as a full-time radio presenter for Energy FM. Through radio, she rubbed shoulders with a quick-witted and sharp-on-their-feet crowd. The likes of Pam Corkery, whom she “adores”, Bill Ralston, and Paul Henry, who taught her to be fearless and confident.

A chance to appear in the Treasure Island reality show, filmed in Tonga, saw her take out the title in the second New Zealand series – the first woman in the world to win a survival reality show. Her love for reality TV blossomed and she moved into a production manager role with Touchdown Productions. “It was great fun working on Changing Rooms, DIY Rescue, Farmer Wants A Wife, and Treasure Island, but my role with Greenstone Pictures got me into more series documentaries, like Crash Investigation.” Tanya helped set up the Australian office for Greenstone in Melbourne and Sydney, then moved to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where she spent five years overseeing multi-million-dollar budgets.

In 2018, her family asked her to come home to help with Grapeworx, and the pull was too strong to refuse. “I could feel regret stepping away from my media career, but I don’t, as I had the blessing of having my son and partner, at the time.” Once back in Marlborough she found the family were not quite ready to let her 100% loose on the business, so she had some spare time. She turned her attention to restructuring New Zealand Master Contractors and loved every minute of it. “Master Contractors was created for service providers in horticulture and viticulture around legal compliance but had no direct advocacy role or a framework of employment standards based on ethics,” she says. “I went to New Zealand Winegrowers to see if they would do it, but they wanted a level of separation from contractors.” That forced Master Contractors to do it themselves, “which was a good thing in hindsight”.

Tanya took on the role of Chief Executive in 2018 and, together with board members like Aaron Jay from Hortus, nutted out a plan. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Guidelines, all became familiar frameworks for Tanya and the basis for the newly created NZEE, with its mission statement to improve end-to-end quality of employment, to raise standards and create a rights-respecting baseline to level the playing field, so that competitiveness is not at the expense of the worker.

Tanya says current laws help prosecute poor employment practice, but guidance for employers on how to lift the bar was missing. It took almost two years to redesign NZEE, which launched in 2022. In February this year she attended a conference in Berlin, hosted by Global Good Agricultural Practices (GLOBALG.A.P) which is accreditation required of every member of NZEE. The GAP third-party audit scheme has become embedded inside NZEE because it’s required for most wine retailers to export overseas, Tanya says. It is recognised and required by 53 of the big retailers in Asia, Africa, the EU and North America. “It made sense for NZEE to choose an accreditation that was internationally recognised specifically for the value chains in food and agriculture sectors that our members worked in.” The audit involves a process where a private investigator checks the on-the-ground systems and there is a process to continually improve the standards.

Tanya says a focus is on countries that supply workers to New Zealand. “Hurdles are corruption in other countries; for example, having to pay a bribe to get the job opportunity to be considered to come to here.” While the wheels of government negotiations may move slowly, Tanya is typically impatient to see change in this regard. “I’ve had hard conversations with MFAT to find the right government people to talk to, on responsible recruitment. We don’t want employees having to pay a pre-recruitment fee.”

She remained NZEE Chief Executive until July this year, when she stepped down to take up a fulltime role with Grapeworx. She says New Zealand’s wine industry is well protected by NZEE, but everyone needs to be vigilant, recalling the days of labour inspectors chasing vineyard workers up rows. “The easy thing is to ask for the document that shows everyone on the vineyard is legally allowed to work here,” Tanya adds “Growers can be complicit in exploitation, and I know of cash deals out there, which add risk.” On the other hand, she’s still aggravated by a TV news show two years ago that alleged there was exploitation in Marlborough. “While the investigation showed no exploitation was found, the TV show has still not publicly said there was no exploitation.” At this point, Tanya’s sense of fair play was aroused. “I managed to get them to change their media website to say the allegations were unfounded, but it took two years.”

Tanya credits Indevin as leading the way in supporting NZEE. “This season they require all growers to use NZEE members, and there are 18 in Marlborough and 50 nationwide to choose from, so there is no collusion or lack of choice.” She loves the way that the culture of contractors has changed, with the words fair and equitable being brought into everyday chat. There are only two Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme employers in Marlborough that are not NZEE members, but about two thirds of all RSE employees are within the NZEE umbrella.

In July, Tanya was awarded the New Zealand Primary Industry Team and Collaboration Award, after being nominated by colleagues. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to expand NZEE across all primary industries, she says. “The vision of putting people at the heart of businesses – ensuring profit without harm – is brought to life by motivated employers who are driving change.”